Seems silly to me, if it's a bay, there's silt flowing into it, time itself could pile 10cm of detritus into the deepest parts and make it more shallow.

[–] polotype@lemmy.ml 47 points 2 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

That's the whole point. 100 fathoms is really imprecise. But on translation, they didn't bother keeping the significant digit count equal, and since 182.8 m= 100 f , they just left it like that. I mean, it's the only reason he could guess there was a unit change...

[–] deltapi@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Yeah. I understand the mechanics of the joke, it just seems to me it'd work a bit better with a less dynamic environment. (Shrug) There's a reason I don't write, edit, or produce comics/jokes for a living, and my comments here kinda illustrate it, I think! 😅

[–] Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 14 points 2 days ago

Or currents might deepen a hole too. Putting silt in one place can cause other places to change too.

And if it were more shallow, shipping would have a big impact too.